By Wanjala Danson
The Ministry of Land and Physical Planning has launched the National Spatial Plan (NSP) 2015-2045 which givesguidelines on in land planning and development.
NPS aims at distributing population and activities on the national land and territorial space to sustain social-economic development.
According to the Cabinet Secretary for theministry of land Jacob Kaimenyi,NSP will address disconnection between economic and spatial planning which has led to uncoordinated and unguided development in major towns.
This will be through establishing broad physical planning framework that provides physical planning policies that support economic and sectorial planning.
“This policy comes up with policy on land use in sustainable economic manner which will enable proper usage of land by national, county governments and individuals,” Kaimenyi said.
The Chairman of the National Land Commission Swazuri Muhammad said county governments have developed their physical planning policy in relation with the National Spatial Plan.
He stated that county governments consulted the ministry of land and the national land commission before developing their physical planning structures.
The plan also describes how national space is utilized for the country to realize maximum sustainable use of land.
The plan is designed to provide planning framework for integration of social, economic and environment which aims at strengthening national economic planning by providing dimension and coordinating sectorial agencies to mitigate duplication of functions and responsibility.
In promoting national competitiveness, it establish the National Competitive Model which states Kenya should leverage its strengths and opportunities in cites, geographical location, abundant natural resources, infrastructures projects and emergence ICT.
To promotebalanced regional development, it proposes the establishment of economic zones in the Northern region according to potential.
It also develop rural development strategy which aims at improving the quality of life and economy of people in rural areas by improving agriculture , rural production, socio-economic infrastructure, community service and facilities.
On managing human settlement,NPS creates a hierarchy of urban areas as national, regional and urban growth areas and anticipates the emerging metropolitan areas.
On developing tourism, NPS establishes Tourism Development Framework which identifies five tourism circuits within which to promote diversification by offering diverse tourism products in each circuit.
It also establishes National Agriculture Framework in modernizing the agriculture development. This aims at transforming agriculture into modern and commercially sector through identifying areas per there potential, intensification and diversification.
This identify agriculture areas into rangelands, medium and high potential agricultural areas.
NPS creates the National Environment Framework which deals with n conserving the natural environment.
It identifies the country as an environmentally fragile space and seeks to prioritize protection and conservation of the environmental sensitive areas.
The NSP contain a Integrated Transport Framework which proposes an integrated national transport network that seeks to maximize efficiency and sustainability if the transport by identifying national infrastructure and propose new once to fill those missing.
These include road networks, railways, water ports, airports and telecommunications.
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